15 years ago, if you were to tell me that folks in the future would be able to play Solitaire on their watches, I would have called you a hack. But yeah, the developers at MobilityWare Inc have updated their super popular iOS title, Solitaire, to be Apple Watch App, allowing folks to play Solitaire right on their wrists. MobilityWare’s Apple Watch version of Solitaire lets players take on daily challenges, view trophy status, countdowns to upcoming challenges and more!

“We are just scratching the surface for what’s possible with wearable devices and expect greater interactive experiences as we push design innovation even further,” said Dave Yonamine, CEO of MobilityWare. “As one of the first game publishers on the App Store back in 2008, we are pleased to be in the same position with another transcendent platform and look forward to revealing details of the additional games currently in development.”

In addition to the unprecedented success of Solitaire since its launch, MobilityWare remains one of the most dynamic mobile games studios today. With 250 million downloads from its portfolio, the company continues to expand through key new executive hires, strategic platform diversification to include wearables, and continued revenue growth via its proprietary ad model.

Clear the skies for a new hero! From independent game developer Picomy and published by SEGA, Heroki is a new action-adventure game that follows the colorful and kind propeller-headed hero on his quest to save his world and battle the enemies that get in his way. In development over five years and announced two years ago at PAX Prime, Heroki will be exclusive to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and available soon as a premium title for $7.99 on the App Store.

Set in a whimsical universe full of flight and fantasy, Heroki challenges and delights players with fun and intuitive touch controls, and engaging gameplay. Heroki uses the wind to fly, freefall, dash, and bash across beautiful 3D rendered sky-islands, jungles, seas and deserts, on a quest to save the peaceful sky village of Levantia.

Offering more than ten hours of gameplay across four worlds and a cast of friendly characters facing off against dozens unique enemies, this deep and beautiful mobile action-adventure introduces the world to a fantastic all-new IP.

For more information on independent developer, Picomy and to learn about Heroki, please visit their website. For the latest social update you can follow them on Twitter and LIKE them on Facebook .

Remember the cartoon character Elmer Fudd, the hunting enthusiast who is always out to get Bugs Bunny? Funny guy, with an interesting speech pattern and a thing for rabbits. It’s often the case whereby video games (and those on mobile platforms are no exception) that the players take on the role of the hunter a.k.a Elmer Fudd. Finnish indie developers KoukoiGames however have put a twist to the idea with their new upcoming mobile game, Crashing Season where players instead take on the role of Bugs Bunny…I mean the hunted.

Crashing Season is a super fun physics based 3D mobile game in which players control different kind of animal characters (much like Bugs Bunny from the cartoons) and tries to survive for as long as possible, and same time complete challenging set of missions in diverse game worlds while vicious hunters tries to hunt and take them down.

Players will need to survive for as long as possible, complete challenges for each character, unlock stars to open up new levels and themes, collect coins to get more characters to play, use boosts to make things super fun and compete against other players. The game will be full of action, fun, craziness and surprises for mobile gamers to experience. Graphics wise, the game looks slightly inspired by the likes of Team Fortress 2.

Crashing Season promises a lot from one of Finland’s most talked about new gaming studios; after all, Koukoi is staffed with folks who have previously worked in Rovio and Nokia. For more news on Crashing Season, do stay tuned to Nineoverten.com. The game will be out by the end of Summer 2015.

In case you missed it, there were are a whole bunch of interesting gadgets announced this week, with one of the announcements made at E3. First up would be Gunnar, the world’s leading creator and manufacturer of computer and gaming eyewear, with its new line of cooperative styles in partnership with Razer…yup, the very folks responsible for bringing cool gaming peripherals like the mouse I’m using for my StarCraft/Diablo sessions.

Next up, is SteelSeries, which happens to be a competitor to Razer and a leading global manufacturer of gaming peripherals. They introduced six new console gaming headsets. Combining more than a decade of global gaming expertise with tournament-tested insights from eSports professionals, SteelSeries Siberia headsets are designed to deliver a new level of comfort that console gamers have never felt before.

For Xbox One gamers, SteelSeries is introducing the Siberia X100, Siberia X300, and Siberia X800, each featuring a SteelSeries Xbox One adapter giving gamers fingertip control of volume, chat, and settings. For PlayStation gamers, the Siberia P100, Siberia P300, and Siberia P800 are designed for audio and communication on PS4.

The Xbox One models come at a slight premium compared to their PS4 counterparts, probably due to the adapter and support of Microsoft® 7.1 Virtual Surround Sound on Xbox One. Having said that, for price comparison of the latest gadgets and electronics like the SteelSeries Siberia headsets, check out shop2day.

For more cool peripherals coming out of E3 (or post E3), be sure to stay tuned to Nineoverten.com.

Hamburg-based Daedalic Entertainment’s upcoming adventure title for iOS devices, FIRE, boasts some pretty stunning 2D visuals. The artwork looks very colourful and exquisite for a title that was also available on the PC. The exploration adventure featuring the Neanderthal named Ungh will be available on the App Store for EUR 3.99 / $ 3.99 / £ 2.99 at the end of July.

FIRE relies on intuitive puzzles to tell the amusing story of the Neanderthal Ungh, who is on a quest for fire. But as is typical for a Stone Age man, he isn’t the sharpest flint knife in the quarry, and so the fantastic adventure gets by without much talking. Players have to help the clumsy Ungh find his way through the prehistoric world.

Because he let the campfire go out, his tribe has ordered him to find new fire. From that point on, he must solve tricky tasks and creatively overcome challenges in his search for that most important of elements. He uses tools such as mammoths and all sorts of other beasts as well as Stone Age items. During his quest, he will meet bats and dinosaurs and explore the steppe, the jungle, and even the interior of a volcano. Whether or not he is ultimately successful depends entirely on the player’s puzzle skill.

Daedalic’s Stone Age fun FIRE will be available for download on the App Store for a price of EUR 3.99 / $ 3.99 / £ 2.99 beginning July 29th, 2015. Check out Nineoverten.com for the upcoming review of the game.

The Ys series of action-RPG games have been around for a very long time, as long as the venerable Final Fantasy series; both series actually debuted in 1987 for the NEC PC-8801 and the NES respectively. While the Final Fantasy games tend to be stand alone stories with different settings/characters, the Ys series revolves around the main character, Adol Christin, a young adventurer who visits various regions set in the island of Ys throughout the games.

Originally released in 2009 for the PSP, Ys Chronicles II is set for an iOS & Android debut in a version of the game that is especially adapted for touch gameplay, thanks to the folks at DotEmu. In Ys Chronicles II (also known as Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter), players take on the role as the adventurous Adol Christin, who, after collecting the sacred books in Ys Chronicles I, must continue his quest to unravel the true secrets of the island of Ys.

As Adol, players get to show off their swordsmanship, discover new weapons, and for the first time use magic to free Esteria from evil in the second chapter of this renowned series. As the second largest eastern RPG series after Final Fantasy, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of fans who are excited over this upcoming release, so stay tuned to Nineoverten.com for more details.

I was reading an article the other day on the technological trends for mobile applications in 2015. One of it was the use of frameworks such as Unity to create better games instead of building them from scratch… which I agree since time wasted on building all the ancillary stuff can be better used to improve the quality of the game that one would be building.

In any case, one indie game served as a case-study on why frameworks like Unity help not only to improve time-to-market but also provide features that would be unthinkable several years ago. Ball King by Qwiboo is a casual arcade game whereby players control a basketball player in all his 2D pixelated glory trying to launch all kinds of stuff through a basket in order to get a high score. Now, the placement of the basket varies in height, so this makes precision key, and not only that, there’s wind to contend with.

All the action happens very smoothly on screen (I suspect a high FPS count), and certain rim-shots get the camera close-up treatment which is a very, very nice touch…what’s more impressive is that this happens in real-time. The background on the level I’m playing on is actually well animated. Remember when I said that the objective is to get all kinds of stuff into the basket? Well, Ball King doesn’t leave players to contend with the initial basketball.

Stuff can be unlocked by playing the game, and this includes pizzas, 3.5 inch floppy disks, nuts, mushrooms…..all of them are on display on the Start Screen actually. What’s more impressive about Ball King is the implementation of Unity’s EveryPlay function, allowing the game to record your plays and put it up on YouTube, this is a feature very relevant in the age of Twitch, and one that would have developers spinning around in circles to implement years ago. So hooray for frameworks!

To further add to that whole social experience, there’s the GameCenter leaderboard built into the game. I still struggle to understand how folks can top the charts with more than 600 points while I have a measly 8. Ball King is TOUGH.

Having said all that, Ball King doesn’t bear the hallmark failure points typical of indie games (poorly made, lousy gameplay) but instead boasts excellent (not to mention super addictive/commute friendly) gameplay and really great 2D pixel graphics. Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates Ball King at a 5 out of 5. Ball King is available for FREE on the iTunes App Store for iOS devices, and as well as the Google Play Store for Android devices.

As a video games reviewer, I’ve played plenty of match-3 games, after all, both iOS and Android platforms can be considered the de-facto home for such titles. In any case, indie game developer Roman Silin‘s latest iOS title, Rigibi puts a colourful spin to a traditional match-3 puzzle title and it’s one game you would wish you were a graphics designer (or a web developer) in the first place.

It’s a game where you’ll be sliding coloured tiles around in order for them to merge to come up with a new shade. Yup, you read that right. The whole idea is to get the same shade as the border ringing the tiles. There’s a bit of guesswork (if you must know, I’m colour-blind), but like I said, if you are a graphics designer or a web developer, turn on the hexadecimal codes on screen and do the math to get the correct sequence of merging tiles.

Some puzzles out of the 99 available in Rigibi can be pretty tough, but players will get a key for every 10 levels completed. And having these keys around can be pretty handy as triggering one will basically help players get over some of the tougher levels in Rigibi. Other than that, the helpful help menu (triggered by tapping on the question mark on the top left of the screen) does give a brief description on the math involved.

With a minimalist interface and an interesting twist to what would have been a typical match-3 experience, Rigibi does a fair bit to differentiate itself from its ilk. We rate it at an impressive 4.5 out of 5. Rigibi is totally FREE on the iTunes App Store sans in-app purchases, check it out over here.

Pretty cool games to check out this week, both of iOS and Android. First up, Sproggiwood. Initially developed by Freehold Games for the PC, Sproggiwood is an overwhemingly cute story-driven Rogue-like RPG now available for both iOS and Android devices. Featuring procedurally-generated dungeons, players may do well to not let the adorable art deceive you.

Like any good roguelike, Sproggiwood requires patience and skill to survive a trek through the Sprog. Taking you on a hilarious adventure through Finnish folklore, Sproggiwood introduces players to Sproggi — the guardian of Sprog. Disguising himself as a talking sheep, Sproggi lures players into his realm to help him bring peace and order to the land and tame the creatures that inhabit the Sprog. During your travels, you will eventually discover a budding mushroom civilization. Whether you choose to befriend (or crush) the inhabitants is up to you.

Sproggiwood is what we would consider as a premium title for iOS and Android devices (much like X-Com), and it’s price at USD 9.99. Check it out on Google Play and the iTunes App Store.

Next up, it’s Crumble Ramble by German indie studio Panic Chicken for Android devices. It’s a jump n’ run 3D adventure game with players helping out Jack Ramble, an inventive boy whose grandfather was kidnapped by the evil Dr. Sordid. Using a self-made hoverboard Jack must explore the mysterious Mayan ruins, solve exciting puzzles, fight against evil dwarf armies and follow the evil doctor to find his beloved grandfather. The game is available for FREE on Google Play, check it out over here.

Last but not least it’s an ode to pixel art in the form of Tower Slash, a brand new casual game from Portuguese indie developer João Vasco Costa. Initially released for iOS in April 2015, it has been nominated at the IMGA 2015 for best upcoming game, and is now available for Android devices as well. It is a casual-but-hard action game, with pixel art graphics and 8 bit sound effects in a retro style environment.

The main objective is to help the runner climb an infinite tower, using challenging swipe mechanics. Each enemy encountered along the way can only be defeated by a specific swipe direction. As this wasn’t enough, players will encounter gigantic dangerous creatures that will test the limits of their concentration. One simple mistake will lead to defeat!

To be honest, I don’t really get stumped while playing console games such as Shadow of Mordor, Grand Theft Auto V or even Fallout 3, and that’s despite the prevalent puzzle elements in that last title. On the other hand, casual games often get the better of me on the intellectual/problem-solving side. Case in point would be indie developer William Wu’s first iOS/Android puzzle game, Get to Zero.

For starters, the game looks incredibly polished for a first-timer’s foray onto the App Store/Google Play. Don’t let the slick, colourful graphics (which coincidently reminded me of Nintendo’s Picross DS title) fool you, this math-based 2D puzzler is one tough cookie. The premise of the game is pretty simple, tap the numbered tiles on the screen in order to get all of them to zero.

Players have a limited number of moves in each level, and depending on whether the player is provided with a + or – sign, each move can either add or subtract the value of the tiles. Tiles that are adjacent to the tile being tapped, with the same value will be affected by that numeric operation. Based on the distribution of numbered tiles, players will need to figure out the proper sequence to add and subtract in order to get all of the tiles down to 0.

Personally, I was stuck at the 11th level under Stage 01 which is practically for beginners, and I just got past that level several minutes before typing out this review. Get to Zero features 5 Stages, representing varying degrees of difficulty, with 20 levels each, bringing the total number of levels to a grand 100. Players can choose to perform an in-app purchase to unlock Stages 4 and 5, or complete the first 3 Stages to unlock Stage 4. Completing Stages 1-4 will then unlock Stage 5 with no purchases necessary.

The challenging, not to mention, addictive gameplay with polished 2D graphics, belie the fact that Get to Zero is William Wu’s first game on both iOS and Android platforms. For that, Nineoverten.com rates Get to Zero a deserving 5 out of 5. Count me impressed! Check out the game, which is available as a Free-To-Play title on the iTunes App Store, and the Google Play Store.